Does anyone actually play this game for fun?

[Ceaseless]

People moaning about this kind of thing are generally people who just don't like losing.

Complaining that Carcassonne is too cut-throat is bizarre. It's what the game is about! if you want to just place tiles and make a pretty picture go do a jigsaw.

Yeah, it does seem like that's one of the big problems. Players struggle with losing and instead of just accepting that they try to make up for it by making up insane conspiracies like "blocking is unfair" or "the game is rigged" etc. It might also be a poor sportsmanship issue on their end. They just want to play with themselves and go "yay, I win!" while ignoring the fact their opponent exists at all.

I wouldn't even call blocking a cut-throat move, it's just another basic part of the game, no different than any other move like building a city, etc. It helps balance out when one player has the heavy point momentum by giving the other player the ability to play defense and balance both player's options so that they have to actually play each other, instead of having them play solitaire across from each other.

[ANDN]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I came from playing Carcassone-physical game where is no such thing like blocking. And you could imagine my shock when I got for the first time blocked. And then I got used to it, understood the whole strategy behind this kind of playing. Ofcourse, I started to block too, first for cheap revenge (you blocked me, I'll do the same to you), then for wining my game (after all I do like to win) but I soon discover that I started to dislike this manner of playing, aggressive and obstructive, even when I was the winner! It's very frustrating!

Then I remembered my physical game and THE RULES! The rules, of course.

Does anyone actually read the rules?!
Because according to the official rules, which gameboardarena offer in pdf format, the players have the obligation to CONTINUE the landscape, I cite: "You must place the tiles in such a way that it continues the existing landscape". Nowhere in the rules you'll ever find something like: you must or could or can or it's possible or allowed or etc etc TO BLOCK your opponent.
Not even as an end note or written in small letters (as an innocent clue to win as authors usually do in rules) : block the other players by placing a tile so that you discontinue the landscape.
Is this sensible enough?

MORE : in the official rules WHEN you cannot place a tile because you cannot continue the landscape, IT'S WRITTEN very clear that you will replace that tile! (why?! to prevent discontinuing!). So if the rules keeps stating about CONTINUING the landscape and nowhere is written or encouraged something as BLOCK your opponent I wonder why gameboardarena allows this kind of playing??

Because something that it isn't even MENTIONED in the official rule, here in the boardgamearena version it becomes an unwritten and the most powerful rule to play & win: players place the tiles ESPECIALLY to create discontinuities in the landscape and with the purpose of blocking the other players!

Personally, I consider that this game has this implementation error: it allows landscape DISCONTINUITY, which leads indirectly in a player being blocked by others.

I am very interested if the author himself knows (and approves?!) how this game turns out here way out contrary to the rules he created.

Thank you, and good luck!

[Silene]

Do you realize that by "continuing the landscape" in the rules it means you have to place your tile in a way that the edges of tiles adjacent to each other have to show the same thing? It means you cannot place a road running right into a field. If you have a road on the edge of a placed tile and you want to place a tile at that edge, you have to continue the road.

It's the very mechanism that makes blocking possible in the first place.

[Ceaseless]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I came from playing Carcassone-physical game where is no such thing like blocking. And you could imagine my shock when I got for the first time blocked. And then I got used to it, understood the whole strategy behind this kind of playing. Ofcourse, I started to block too, first for cheap revenge (you blocked me, I'll do the same to you), then for wining my game (after all I do like to win) but I soon discover that I started to dislike this manner of playing, aggressive and obstructive, even when I was the winner! It's very frustrating!

Then I remembered my physical game and THE RULES! The rules, of course.

Does anyone actually read the rules?!
Because according to the official rules, which gameboardarena offer in pdf format, the players have the obligation to CONTINUE the landscape, I cite: "You must place the tiles in such a way that it continues the existing landscape". Nowhere in the rules you'll ever find something like: you must or could or can or it's possible or allowed or etc etc TO BLOCK your opponent.
Not even as an end note or written in small letters (as an innocent clue to win as authors usually do in rules) : block the other players by placing a tile so that you discontinue the landscape.
Is this sensible enough?

MORE : in the official rules WHEN you cannot place a tile because you cannot continue the landscape, IT'S WRITTEN very clear that you will replace that tile! (why?! to prevent discontinuing!). So if the rules keeps stating about CONTINUING the landscape and nowhere is written or encouraged something as BLOCK your opponent I wonder why gameboardarena allows this kind of playing??

Because something that it isn't even MENTIONED in the official rule, here in the boardgamearena version it becomes an unwritten and the most powerful rule to play & win: players place the tiles ESPECIALLY to create discontinuities in the landscape and with the purpose of blocking the other players!

Personally, I consider that this game has this implementation error: it allows landscape DISCONTINUITY, which leads indirectly in a player being blocked by others.

I am very interested if the author himself knows (and approves?!) how this game turns out here way out contrary to the rules he created.

Thank you, and good luck!

The very concept of continuous landscape is what enabled blocking to exist in the first place. You act as though blocking is some sort of special technique. It's not. Blcoking is nothing more than one potential result of normal moves. Any time there is a square space between pieces, such as when they placed a meeple as a knight on page 4 of https://images.zmangames.com/filer_publ ... _rules.pdf , that act of placing the piece that led to making that blank square is a form of blocking. The field on the left of the newly placed piece serves to limit the opponent's options to expand the city, as they must have a field on the right. This is blocking. In fact, in some games players may frequently just end up blocking by accident as their pieces naturally end up disrupting other options. Some blocking may be more likely to slow or lock down a slot than others, such as if the pieces are less likely to have an available road slot than city slot, etc. but the concept is no different.
Carcassonne is an interactive game, whether you use blocks, or even taking your opponent's resources entirely, such as stealing their city, a tactic demonstrated on page 6.

[Mr_Magic]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I respectfully suggest that you may have misunderstood the rules of the game in your physical copy.

[Meeplelowda]

Does anyone actually read the rules?!
Because according to the official rules, which gameboardarena offer in pdf format, the players have the obligation to CONTINUE the landscape, I cite: "You must place the tiles in such a way that it continues the existing landscape". Nowhere in the rules you'll ever find something like: you must or could or can or it's possible or allowed or etc etc TO BLOCK your opponent.

Other people have already pointed out other flaws in your reasoning that this is somehow a rule against blocking. I'll come at it from a different angle. The actual rule is about what you are able to do on your turn, and you are trying to turn it into something about what other player will be able to do on their turns. In order to preclude blocking, the rule would have to say something like "you must place tiles in such a way that it continues the existing landscape and in such a way that another player will be able to continue the landscape in every open direction from the tile you just placed."

It does not say that. Full stop. You are just tacking on the part after "and" as if it necessarily follows from the part before the "and". Such a rule would be silly because it would require encyclopedic knowledge of all tiles that are still available and it would occasionally preclude placements that complete a structure. Even if you tack on "unless it completes a structure" at the end, the first problem would still be present.

I'll also note that if your interpretation of the rules were correct, the publisher of Carcassonne would have required it to be implemented on BGA through the framework and there wouldn't be an option to make a so-called blocking move.

[SionedCati]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I came from playing Carcassone-physical game where is no such thing like blocking. And you could imagine my shock when I got for the first time blocked.

Sorry you’re getting some pushback against what you said. I think what you are saying is really interesting.
Whether it’s “officially correct” or not doesn’t matter.
What matters is that, as the OP said, for some of us board games, and especially board games like Carcassonne, are about more than just winning at any cost. Games don’t need to be labelled as cooperative games for some of us to engage with them as a creative and/or communal activity.

[SionedCati]

Most of the people I'm playing with seem to be playing just to block others. I get it, it's a game, and blocking is part of strategy and we all do it, but some folks it's like that is the ONLY strategy. It's such a shame because I think this is probably a fun game IRL but it's so cutthroat here it's hard to enjoy, and I am sure I'm not the only one frustrated...

I was really surprised at your question - i’m new to board game arena, but have played Carcassonne in real life many times, and have always loved it as a creative game where’re building something beautiful. Almost a cooperative game.

I’m sad to hear its not like that here, at least not in the real-time games. At the moment I’m playing it in a turn-based game and that doesn’t seem to be cut throat - thank goodness!

Maybe we need to gather a group of us here who enjoy playing it just for gentle fun?

[SionedCati]

In general I find many players on BGA too cutthroat and toxic. People aren't here to have fun, they're here to win by any means necessary at the expense of others' fun.

This is so sad to hear this.

Maybe we need to make a group of people who like to play for fun, without any nastiness?

[SirMadnessTV]

Most of the people I'm playing with seem to be playing just to block others. I get it, it's a game, and blocking is part of strategy and we all do it, but some folks it's like that is the ONLY strategy. It's such a shame because I think this is probably a fun game IRL but it's so cutthroat here it's hard to enjoy, and I am sure I'm not the only one frustrated...

Hey there.
What I tend to say to new players is that when you reach the point of "being blocked starts to be frustrating" then this is because it's the start of your actual, real progression with this game.

Carcassonne is a "wargame, about control of territories with probabilities and anticipation." most of the gameS let's us think that "in order to win you have to score points" but that's very not what is carcassonne in the end. This game is about "having 1 points more than the opponnent/s" blocking is a tool to reach this objective. But it's then a gamedesign that proposes "to defend/protect" your meeples and your territories. this is very not a friendly game, but I promise you that the fun comes back when you embrasse this defending aspect of the game (and use probabilities like with poker of what tiles left in the pile etc to do so.)

The frustration comes from the missunderstanding of what Carcassonne is about only but after this vision switch effort, it becomes a fantastic game, really deep and very not that random. + the more you'll enter and understand what this battle is, the less hostile you'll find behavior of players and the more you'll enjoy what crazy moves some of them can do.

Cheers ! <3